Learning About Students

It says so right in TPE 8; we should be learning about our students: "assess prior knowledge and skills, knows students as individuals, interacts with parents, identifies students with special needs, and understands how students' identities influence schooling experience." I definitely got a taste of all of that tonight.

I was on the way home from an abbreviated class at SFSU, planning to go home and work on my dreaded TPEs. On the bus home I saw one of my 10th grade students whom I know has been having some struggles at home. I didn't know the details and a couple weeks ago had offered to talk or email with her if she ever wanted. (I gave her my cell phone number; should I not do that?) She was really appreciative of that offer but never took me up on it, and whenever I would ask her how things were she would just say "O.K. Well, sort of" or something indicating that things weren't so good. I knew she was seeing the school counselor and that the dean was involved, so I didn't pursue it beyond offering a couple more times to talk if she ever wanted to.

So, I ran into her on the bus and started talking with her. I asked her if things were really ok at home or if she wanted to talk with me about what's going on, and we ended up talking for a really long time. I skipped my bus stop and as it turned out she skipped hers because she wanted to keep talking and assumed we hadn't gotten to my stop yet. She lives in the Tenderloin. We walked around aimlessly on Market St. and she revealed a tremendous amount of info to me. She let me know that she's 2 months pregnant, and, after an abortion 6 months ago and a miscarriage of twins a couple months after that, she is planning on keeping this baby. The father is an 18-year-old dropout who's involved with gangs and just got out of juvenile hall and who recenly broke up with her and is now dating someone else. Ugh.

We kept talking and walking until I finally suggested we sit down somewhere, and then, in the middle of the wasteland of Market and 6th-8th Sts., I offered to just walk her home. When we got near her house, I realized she lives just a couple blocks from my favorite restaurant, and I offered to take her to dinner there. She told me that she was actually just about to invite me over for dinner at her house. I certainly couldn't turn this down--damn those TPEs.

Randomly (while procrastinating working on my TPEs, I think) this weekend I reread the letters I had the students write to me the first day of school introducing themselves to me. I totally remembered that in her letter she said that she lives in a studio apartment with her bro and sis in the Tenderloin. I couldn't even picture what that would look like--a studio apartment for 5 people. I actually remember stopping to try to picture it. What I imagined was so ridiculously rosy; it was a very large, bright, clean studio--each person a little squished but at least manageable with each person having a bit of space of their own. When I first moved here, I lived in a beautiful studio near Dolores Park with my boyfriend at the time; yeah, it was small, but it was nice and we managed. It's like my brain wouldn't let myself imagine that they lived in a place as crappy as I realistically could have guessed: a small studio in the heart of the Tenderloin for 5 people.

I can't even properly convey what this place looked like. She lives in a ridiculously tiny studio apartment that she shares with her parents and 18 year old brother and 14 year old sister. They have a bunk bed and a loft for the kids in the studio--a teeny room--and her parents, who don't speak English (they're Chinese) sleep on the floor. Except I really cannot figure out where on the floor they could sleep because there's just not floor space anywhere--I guess right in between the two beds, maybe, barely, but Jesus Christ. I've literally never set foot in the home of a family so poor.

All their clothes and stuff was basically piled up all over the house, literally going up to the ceiling; I guess they don't have a closet, so the clothes that need to be hung up are hanging from the window panes.

I have to say that if that was my house growing up I would never have invited anyone over. I would be so ashamed and embarrassed. I was so impressed that she invited me into her world.

She said she can't concentrate on doing her homework there, so she doesn't start it until everyone's asleep--after 10. Amazingly, she *always* does her homework and has an A in my class.

Her parents speak virtually no English at all except for the basics of "Hello," "Good bye," and "Thank you," so we spoke totally freely about her situation. I SO don't want her to have this baby, which was very difficult for me to hold in. I told her that it's absolutely not for me to advise or try to sway her one way or another, which I feel strongly about but which is also very challenging because I also have a very strong opinion about it. It turns out she's not totally sure. I asked her what her reasons would be for keeping it and she said, simply, "I don't want to kill anything else." Ugh. I asked how she felt about the first abortion, and she said she had thoughts that if she had kept the baby then maybe she could have learned to be more responsible. I said very gently, in a way I knew I could get away with, that maybe the lesson she could have learned following the first preganancy and abortion was to use birth control. "Yeah, I guess that's true," she admitted. I mentioned HIV and asked her about health class and whatnot; she said he'd been tested.

Her parents cooked me up a vegetarian meal, which I ate by myself (everyone else had already eaten) on the ironing board they use for a dining room table. The student and I talked for 2 more hours. She shared that she totally related to so much about the book we just finished, The Woman Warrior, which addresses the culture clash between a Chinese American woman/daughter and her Chinese mother. The student told me things that her mother says to her that made me sick.

During dinner she asked me about the program I'm in and I told her about my schedule and also just more about me. She told me that I'm one of the best teachers she's ever had, and that she has learned a lot in my class, which made me feel really good. She cutely said that she's not just saying that, and that I'm not one of the best out of the new teachers or student teachers but of all her teachers. It was a really gratifying thing to hear, especially since I feel like the class is struggling a lot with Shakespeare, and I'm feeling kind of stressed and bummed about that. We talked a bit about Shakespeare and I got feedback from her on things we've done in class.

Finally, I left at almost 9:00, and her parents insisted that, as a gift, I take two plastic bags worth of food. The dad told me in very broken English that if I ever want Chinese food that he used to be a cook. The two of them walked me downstairs to get a cab, and the father wanted to pay for my cab ride which I refused. When I got home, I opened the bags and found bananas, grafefruits, lettuce, and 2 boxes of granola bars.

Now, how do I go about proving what I have learned about my students in a TPE reflection?